New Bond Author Boyd Interviewed

The title of the new James Bond adventure written by author and screenwriter William Boyd will be announced on Monday, April 15, in central London, during a special talk given by the award-winning novelist, and he has also given a new interview to help promote the event.

The announcement of the title to Boyd’s eagerly anticipated new 007 book will be made at 11.30am at the London Book Fair (LBF), held at Earl’s Court in London, on April 15. Boyd will make a personal appearance at the Book Fair to deliver his talk (which he has termed an ‘interview/conversation’), and will be available to speak to journalists. A special James Bond drinks reception will also take place later on in the day, during Monday evening. It will be Boyd’s third visit to the famous Book Fair, which is a key event for the publishing industry, and this year runs from April 15-17.

In a short press release, Boyd said: ‘I’m both delighted and honoured to be one of the Authors of the Day at the London Book Fair. It’s a rare and rather wonderful pleasure to find oneself for a few hours at the very centre of the international publishing industry and LBF always provides the warmest of welcomes to writers’.

A special press release officially announcing the new book title will also be made available to the media from midday on Monday, April 15.

Boyd on Bond

William Boyd was also interviewed for a special LBF tie-in podcast, where he talked about his general literary career and also spoke briefly about his involvement with the world of James Bond.

Boyd said that he said ‘yes instantly’ when he was asked whether he would write the next James Bond novel. He said it came along at ‘just the right time’, as he had just written two spy novels and was steeped in the world of spying. He said he also knew a lot about author Ian Fleming, and had made use of Fleming in one of his previous novels. However, even though he knew much about the James Bond author, as part of the preparation for his own Bond novel he said he had re-read all the Fleming novels himself, as a form of ‘interesting re-education’.

Boyd was also keen to stress the differences between the book Bond and the screen Bond. Boyd said the literary Bond ‘remains true to itself’, whereas most people only know Bond from the films and interpret him via the screen version. The movies have ‘diluted’ and changed people’s perceptions of Bond, and had taken Bond off in directions that he (Boyd) was not always comfortable with. But, he said, the literary Bond ‘is a fascinating creation’, and ‘is a distinct and clear-cut creation’.

When asked whether he had a personal favourite Ian Fleming novel, Boyd said he liked the ones with their ‘feet firmly on the ground’. He said the stories that get ‘gimmicky’ and ‘extravagant’ were his least favourite ones. His favourite one, he said, is From Russia With Love, followed closely by the ‘much maligned’ later Bond book The Man With The Golden Gun.

He said he liked From Russia With Love because it is like ‘a real spy novel’, with a ‘honey-trap’ plot, and (in his view) was Fleming’s ‘most interesting novel’. As with From Russia With Love, Boyd said, The Man With The Golden Gun was also ‘more true’ to the real world of spying, as it was about an assassination in Jamaica, with a straightforward story. These were the books he favoured because his own Bond book is also ‘a straightforward mission’.

Indeed, this more realistic approach had influenced his own upcoming Bond novel, which, he said, will follow Fleming’s chronology. In Boyd’s new book, set in 1969, Bond will be aged 45, and will be a more experienced man, ‘an older and wiser Bond’, not a young agent. Asked to sum up his James Bond novel, Boyd said he told the Fleming family that his Bond book is about ‘a real spy on a real mission’.

Towards the end of the interview, Boyd revealed that he had ‘great fun’ writing the new 007 novel, but said he had also taken it ‘very seriously’, too, with a lot of research. Boyd also said that he recognised that James Bond has become ‘global’, and he said it was already ‘quite an experience to suddenly be part of that’.

Boyd’s new James Bond book will be published in the UK by Jonathan Cape on September 26, 2013, and by Harper Collins in the USA on October 8, 2013.